The Things People Do
by more-than-words
Summary: In the aftermath of the mess caused by Albany, Harry and Ruth discuss their relationship.


**Disclaimer: I need one. This is it. Woo, look at it go!**

**A/N: I'm outrageously nervous about posting this. I've had it on my computer for weeks and finally got fed up of fiddling with it so am putting it out there to see what people think. It's possibly a disaster. Apologies if it is. **

**It's set around the end of the most recent episode, so spoilers up to the end of S9, plus a couple of references to series 5 (or thereabouts). Enjoy (I hope)!**

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Harry often did a lot of his best thinking at night, when everyone else had gone home and he was alone in his office with nothing but the dim glow of a desk lamp for company.

Tonight, he was trying to do anything but think for fear he'd go mad if he did.

It wasn't going well. Every time he forced himself to focus on his paperwork, he would last little more than a minute before his attention was pulled away to focus on the dark silhouette sat out in the Grid, oblivious to him, or at least pretending to be. He tried not to be too happy about the fact Ruth was still here when everyone else had left some time ago.

Nerves settled deep inside him as he saw her stand and then turn towards his office, her eyes on the floor as she walked towards him, something held in her hand. His mind flicked back to the last visit she had paid to his office, when she had told him off for loving her. He hoped she wasn't coming back for round two. His heart wasn't up to it.

She entered without knocking, as usual. "I've finished my report," she said, looking straight at him.

He stared at her, not having heard her speak, too caught up in the fact that it was the first time she had looked at him since he had come back to the Grid yesterday, miraculously alive even after he had voluntarily walked (driven) to his death.

"Harry," she said.

"Yes. Report. Excellent, thank you."

She held out the slim report and he reached out to take it. As his fingers closed on the paper, he noticed that her sleeve had ridden up her wrist. He caught sight of the angry red burns there, their recovery no doubt not at all helped by Lucas snatching her and holding her hostage. Harry dropped the report on the desk and grabbed her hand before she could take it back, gently turning her arm so he could see the extent of the damage. He could feel her eyes on him as he studied the blistered, raw flesh. "That's going to scar," he said, trying to decide what to do with the anger he felt at that.

He felt rather than saw Ruth shrug as he stared at their joined hands, trying not to feel too elated when her fingers flexed against his, holding onto him. "They're not so bad," she said.

He glanced up at her face to see if she was lying – she was, and not very well, either - and then looked to the report on his desk, opening it with his free hand. He scanned the first few lines of her terse, perfunctory account of her ordeal with Lucas, knowing she had written it to meet MI-5 protocol but wishing she had written how she had felt as well as going through the motions of what happened, seeing as she didn't seem overly inclined to tell him otherwise.

"I still can't believe what you did," she said and he found he couldn't read her tone. It was part reproachful, part disbelieving, part… amazed? But whether it was good amazement or bad eluded him.

He kept his eyes on the report and answered her carefully, knowing it was a delicate subject – and rightly so, really, no matter whether or not Albany worked. "I know you don't approve of my actions, Ruth, but I committed treason to save you. The least you can do now is live your life to the full and be happy. For me." _With me._ And then, quieter, "I'd do it all again."

She pulled her hand back from him then and he felt his hopes sink. He forced himself to look at her and found her flexing her shoulder, arm held gingerly, a look of discomfort in her face. Not deliberately pulling away from him then, just muscles and tendons still hurting from the trials of the past week. He should send her home, he knew, tell her to sleep and take a few days off to recover and attempt this conversation another time. But he knows even if he had the willpower to say it, she wouldn't listen. And there might not be another time, for all he knows.

"The things people do for love," she said softly, as though it answered everything, which he supposed, in a way, it did.

"Indeed." He unconsciously raised a hand to touch the mark on his forehead where Lucas had struck him with the gun. Ruth's hands dropped back to her sides and she stood watching him, looking at the little mark on his brow. Something in her expression gave him courage to press on, try another tack to reach her. "It's made me realise, all this, just how important it is to take opportunities when they arise and not to let them pass you by, no matter what." Nerves filled him up inside but he ignored them. "Ruth –"

"Lucas told me to be selfish, Harry," she blurted in the manner of a desperate confession of sins. "He told me to say yes to you, to marry you."

Harry sincerely doubted that that particular revelation had made it into her official report.

She had clearly startled herself with the admission. Her eyes darted towards the door and he could tell she was thinking of bolting before they tied themselves into ever more complicated knots, so he made sure to keep his voice gentle and soothing when he spoke again. "You should. We've done our bit for sacrifice, Ruth. Don't you think it's finally our time for happiness?"

She looked uncertain, as though afraid to let go and give into the simplicity of what he was certain they both wanted. "But what…" The unfinished question hung in the air.

"What, what?"

She shook her head as though dismissing an errant thought and stared down at his desk, at the half-read report he had abandoned there. "You said that the reason you wanted to marry me was so you'd have more than six people at your funeral. And so I'd have more than six people at mine."

He hadn't expected her to bring up that. It threw him a little and he sat in stunned silence for a moment as he recalled his botched proposal and tried to remember if that was what he had actually said to her or if it was what she had inexplicably chosen to take from the conversation. But even if he had said it – although he was certain he hadn't put it quite as bluntly as she had - it wasn't his reason for springing the question on her. He thought she had known that. _But then you never said much else, did you? It's always the way. Everything that matters left unsaid to the detriment of… everything else. Only so much can be inferred from silence and inaction._ More than anything, he wanted to put it right, if only she would let him. "Ruth, that's not what I –"

"Harry," she cut him off, her wringing hands punctuating her hesitant, staccato speech. "See, the thing is, most of the people I know who might come to my funeral already think I'm dead. They already got over me, if they needed to at all. And, er, I don't want to be mourned again, really. It seems… I don't know. Greedy and frivolous. I'm not worth it."

"You're more than worth it." About that, he was vehement. He knew she would see the truth of it in his expression. He also knew she would pretend it wasn't there.

She shook her head. "No." Then, seeing him about to protest, "But even if that were true, I've caused enough pain in my life. Better not to cause any more second time around by being too close to people." She looked him in the eye, then lowered her voice, speaking so softly he had to strain to hear her. "They don't deserve that. And I'm fairly sure I couldn't deal with it, causing yet more pain, alive or dead."

"Don't speak like that." His words came out harsher than he had intended, frustration flaring up and he made a split second decision to follow it through with action. _Enough time wasted. Too many games played._ He stood abruptly and walked over to her, ignored the startled look in her eyes and marched her backwards until her back hit the wall. He grasped her shoulders and leaned down, forcing her to look him in the face. "It will hurt no matter what." He didn't pretend he didn't know what she was talking about; him, them, their own special brand of pain. They'd danced around it enough. "It can't be helped and no one is to blame for that. Ruth, if you were to die… For me, the pain will be there no matter how close we are. We've done it before, remember?"

"Exactly. We – "

His turn to cut her off, with a swift hard kiss to her mouth that shocked her into silence, and then he pressed home his advantage before he could think about what he had done. "It would hurt no matter what, so why not let us be happy first?" He kissed her again, hard, then again, softer, felt her responding without meaning to before he pulled away to speak. "If there's going to be hurt, for either of us, don't let it be for nothing. We can't live in a void. Pain and regret is far worse than pain and happy memories, trust me." He slid his hands up and cupped her face, feeling her tears slide against his thumbs. "You're worth more than six people's upset at a funeral, Ruth. You're worth everything to me and I know you want me, too." He couldn't let himself think otherwise.

Another kiss, longer this time, coaxing her mouth open with one hand and using his teeth to tug on her bottom lip. She fought back, pushing up to meet him. He let himself take hope from the passion of her response. He touched his tongue to hers and felt something shift somewhere deep inside him, warm and liquid and heavy. When they were both panting hard, he pulled away and pushed his forehead against hers. "I won't take no for an answer again. I won't."

"Harry."

There was nothing else that mattered. Suddenly everything was simple. "I know you want to say yes. Do it. Say it. Make some good come out of this mess. Forget everything else. Don't think about it, don't hypothesise, don't spend hours contemplating abstract situations that may never materialise. Say yes to me now, Ruth. Or else I'll ask you again every day until you do."

She shifted against him and he felt the slightest brush of her lips against his as she exhaled. "Say yes to what, exactly?"

As if she even needed to ask.

"To marry me."

He stood and listened to her breathing hard, the shake in her breath as she tried to quash down her emotion. He pushed his body against hers in an effort to stop her succeeding, stop her thinking too much. Her breath hitched and he could sense her hands fidgeting as her arms hung loose at her sides. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the feel of her against him, in case it was the last time he ever got the chance to know her this way.

Then he felt her struggling in his grasp, her head jerking backwards and forwards as though trying to get away and he felt himself panic and his eyes snapped open, new arguments already forming in his head as he steeled himself for another fight, another list of reasons as to why she shouldn't run from him, make this time the time she stayed.

Her hands grasped at his hips, fisting in the material of his trousers and slowly his eyes came up to meet hers. What he saw there stunned him. In one marvellous, split, too-quick, wonderful instant, he realised.

She wasn't struggling against him. She was nodding her agreement. Harry felt his head spin with the thought of it.

"All right," Ruth said quietly when he looked at her, her eyes full of tears and something lovely he hadn't seen there in far too long.

"Wh –"

"Yes, Harry. Yes. I'll marry you. Yes, please."

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**24 hours later**

He put away his phone after speaking to the Home Secretary and then stood in the quiet chill of the night, thinking. _Life after MI-5._ The prospect was daunting, but it wasn't quite so scary anymore.

Footsteps disturbed him less than five minutes later and he smiled to himself, knowing who it was, feeling the fear of beyond lift even more. Ruth came and stood next to him, pressing close against him to ward off the cold as they both looked out across the city. "What did he say?" she said, a forced lightness in her tone.

He found inordinate joy in the fact she was worried about his future. He took her hand and rubbed his thumb across the engagement ring he had given her only yesterday, letting her know without words that, no matter what happened to his career, the future was theirs. "They're coming for me," he said. "Because of Albany. Because I gave it away."

She didn't reply for a long moment and he knew what she would be thinking: _because of me._ "But it wasn't real," she eventually said in a tone carefully measured to mask the guilt he knew lurked within her.

"No. It was still a state secret. There are rules. I broke them."

"If it had been real, we wouldn't be in this mess."

_We._ He loved that. "Wouldn't we?"

"You would never have given it away if it was." She sounded so sure.

He chose to let her believe that. He wished he could believe it with the same certainty, or at least enough so he could convince himself he did. He tried not to dwell on the fact that if he hadn't given Albany away, Lucas would have killed her. He leaned down and kissed the side of her head in a bid to distract himself and chase away the unwelcome thoughts. It mostly worked.

"I haven't really thanked you for what you did," she said after a while. "Or apologised. For being so horrible to you when you'd risked everything to save me."

"You've agreed to marry me," he reminded her. "You don't need to do anything else."

She turned to face him, looking up at him. "I need to take you home and out of this cold."

"Well, that's true. You do need to do that. And then you need to stay with me and never leave."

"I thought we'd already established that part." She nodded to the engagement ring.

"Yes," he said, and lifted her hand to kiss it. "That's the important part. More important than anything else. Don't ever forget it."

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**A/N: Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it.**


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